Black Saturday Bushfires

During the inquest, Mrs. Tanner testified that she had seen Elizabeth on and off for six years and that until Thursday, September 27th, Elizabeth had been living in another lodging house with a man named Michael Kidney. She had walked out on him with nothing but a few ragged clothes and a hymn book. On that Thursday night and the following Friday night she stayed in Mrs. Tanner's lodging house. On the early evening of Saturday, September 29th, Elizabeth and Mrs. Tanner had a drink at Queen's Head public house on Commercial Street, and afterward Elizabeth earned sixpence by cleaning two of the lodging-house rooms. Between ten and eleven, Elizabeth was in the kitchen and handed a piece of velvet to her friend Catherine Lane. "Please keep it safe for me," Elizabeth said, and she added that she was going out for a while. She was dressed for the miserable weather in two petticoats made of a cheap material resembling sacking, a white chemise, white cotton stockings, a black velveteen bodice, a black skirt, a black jacket trimmed with fur, a colorful striped silk handkerchief around her neck, and a small black crepe bonnet ...»